Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)
- This GIF of a swimming crinoid:
- The original video by Els Van Den Eijnden can be found here: Dive in Bali by Els Van Den Eijnden
Jetsam (what we’re enjoying from around the web)
- Glow-in-the-Dark, Inflatable Sharks Can Also Reproduce Asexually. Hakai Magazine consistently produces not only some of the best ocean articles, but the best headlines, to boot.
- @MobyDickatSea. It’s a Twitter Bot that tweets short passages from Moby Dick. There’s also another bot that responds with the chapter for each passage.
- Advocacy for the Squeamish Scientist: a tweet compilation. A great little list of action items from @katie_at_sea.
- Calibrating Your Internet BS Sensors in 9 Easy Steps. Solid advice from Deep Sea News. Fun bit of trivia: the technical term for a bullshit detector is oxometer.
Lagan (what we’re reading from the peer-reviewed literature)
- Shulse and friends (2016) Polymetallic nodules, sediments, and deep waters in the equatorial North Pacific exhibit highly diverse and distinct bacterial, archaeal, and microeukaryotic communities. MicrobiologyOpen, 00: 1–16. doi: 10.1002/mbo3.428.
- Meyer (2016) Community Assembly of Benthic Invertebrates on Island-Like Marine Hard Substrata. You know, in the science we love to joke that the only people who ever read your thesis are your committee members, and even then, sometimes they don’t. I hate that. Let’s buck this trend. Here’s a great thesis by the freshly indoctrinated Kirstin Meyer.
Driftwood (what we’re reading on dead trees)
- Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty. Caitlin gave the keynote at last week’s SciCommCamp and it was phenomenal. Her first book, on the death industry and how to reclaim meaningful death rituals is an important and surprisingly funny read.
- The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire. A book about underwater welding of the coast of Nova Scotia becomes a powerful exploration of fatherhood.
- A Whale for the Killing by Farley Mowat. Mowat’s classic story of his attempt to rescue a stranded fin whale in Newfoundland still resonates over 50 years later.
Derelicts (favorites from the deep archive)
- How presidential elections are impacted by a 100 million year old coastline. This classic from Deep Sea News is one I still think about every couple of months. An amazing deep dive into how ancient oceans shape the modern world.
- Eleven Marine Organisms that would make Amazing Aquaman Villains. If I had to pick one article to represent the entirety of Southern Fried Science, it would have to be this one. A blend of hard science and silliness that perfectly encapsulates what we’re trying to do here.
Feel free to share your own Flotsam, Jetsam, Lagan, Driftwood, and Derelicts in the comments below. And, of as always, if you enjoy Southern Fried Science, consider contributing to my Patreon campaign to help us keep the servers humming.